Recently, network apparatuses are generally used, and many personal computers (PCs) and printers are connected to networks. In this network environment, a print job control system which processes one print job by using a plurality of printers can be constructed. As this print job control system, a distributed printing system, color-monochrome distributed printing system, broadcast printing system, error-based print job redirecting printing system, and the like are known.
The distributed printing system is a print job control system in which, to shorten the printing time of a document having a large number of pages or a document from which a large number of copies are to be made, a print job of the document is once spooled and distributed page by page or copy by copy to a plurality of printers and output by these printers.
The color-monochrome distributed printing system is a print job control system in which, to reduce the printing cost and shorten the printing time of a document having both color pages and monochrome pages in the network environment as described above, the color pages are distributed to and output by color printers, and the monochrome pages are distributed to and output by monochrome printers.
The broadcast printing system is a print job control system in which, in the network environment as described above, one document is transmitted to and printed by a plurality of printers at the same time by one printing instruction.
The error-based print job redirecting printing system is a print job control system in which, if an error occurs in a printer to which a document is transmitted in the network environment as described above, the print job is automatically switched to another printer and printed.
To facilitate setting of individual printers in any of the print job control systems as described above, a method has been proposed by which the print job control system itself is set by transmitting a printing instruction not to a plurality of printers connected to the system but to one virtual printer driver (group printer driver) as a group of these printers.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-222159 has proposed a function by which, in the user interface of a general printer driver for a single printer, different setting items are collectively registered, and an operator selects this registered setting to set a plurality of setting items at once.
Unfortunately, when printing such as distributed printing, broadcast printing, or print job redirecting printing is performed by using a plurality of printers in the print job control system, the details of each printer driver for actually outputting data cannot be set by the group printer driver in some cases. In cases like this, individual printer drivers (member printer drivers) must be separately set. This requires a cumbersome operation of individually setting these member printer drivers whenever a change is made.
Also, the detailed setting as described above is held by each individual member printer driver, so the contents are updated whenever a change is made. Therefore, even when an operator wants to temporarily change the setting, the changed setting is saved, and the operator must reset the setting when executing next printing.
Furthermore, only the setting of the group printer driver can be registered even with the use of the function “favorite” described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-222159. Accordingly, the aforementioned detailed settings of the member printer drivers must be individually set.
In the conventional mechanism as described above, composite setting information collectively indicating a plurality of printing settings, e.g., the paper size and printing resolution, set via a plurality of setting sheets, is saved via a predetermined printer driver UI. When a plurality of printer drivers are to be set for printing in this mechanism, it is necessary to open each member printer driver to select the composite setting information saved in the printer driver. This forces a user to perform a very cumbersome operation.